Feminist Africa an academic journal from South Africa that unusually has its full contents online. As one of the articles in the initial issue (2002) says, much of the research on Africa is driven by First World (government or NGO) imperatives, and very functionally based. This is an attempt to develop a more conceptual framework.
A small sample, from Re-righting the sexual body, by Jessica Horn in the 2006 edition:
Resisting moral corruption from the West is a common motif in the homophobic rhetoric of African leaders. What is bemusing is that moral condemnation and persecution of non-heteronormative behaviour is often supported by allusion to two texts: laws criminalizing “unnatural†sex and the Bible. Both were introduced via the European colonisation of Africa, and in the case of the latter, carried in again by a new wave of US-driven Pentecostal evangelism.
Pentecostalism has been quickly absorbed into communities facing the crisis of HIV/AIDS, severe poverty and armed conflict, providing space for communal catharsis while re-entrenching conservative Christian mores. Furthermore, as discussed above, in international negotiations, African states often seek solidarity with conservative Western governments, including the United States and the Vatican, to assert their claims against sexual rights and, in particular, homosexuality.
This selective, trans-cultural solidarity suggests that homophobia is less an “African†tradition than a patriarchal tradition that has been hijacked into local cultural discourses.
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